Today a large number of companies are greatly expanding their use of UAVs. UAVs have been used for military applications, search-and-rescue missions, scientific research, delivering goods, and other uses. UAVs can include a plurality of airborne platforms or air vehicles, each carrying a plurality of sensors that may be used to collect information about an area under surveillance or to deliver a payload to a certain location. The airborne platforms may communicate with users, which may include persons or equipment, that desire access to data collected by the sensors or desire to control the UAV. More sophisticated UAVs have built-in control and/or guidance systems to perform low-level human pilot duties, such as speed and flight path surveillance, and simple pre-scripted navigation functions. UAV security is a high priority in aerospace and defense applications. Secure communication links are vital for UAV operation, both to control the UAV based on mission objectives and to deliver data reliably to mission controllers on the ground. Encryption and decryption are inherent requirements, adding complexity and cost in the electronics.
While UAVs are being deployed to perform various tasks, there are numerous security measures being taken so there is no chance of security breach while these UAVs are flying in open skies. When communication is between two pre-defined entities in this case, the UAV and the command center, it is fairly simple to secure such communication with necessary encryption and usual secure access enabling mechanisms. However, enabling UAVs to communicate with a number of users creates potential security issues, especially if those users are dynamically added to a list of operators who can access and command the UAV. The problem is not only how to grant access to users securely, which is a major security concern, but also to manage the level of control over the UAV and to enable the UAV to decide intelligently to respond to the commands of the users with limited resources while flying from one location to another location.
There is a need to securely enable access by different users in different locations to a UAV. There is also a need for the UAV to be securely accessed by multiple entities to perform alternate tasks while prioritizing not only its primary task over secondary objectives but also prioritizing the users accessing the UAV.